Video: Getting tracks into the timeline

We have only been exposed to the Timeline window and dealt with sequences in various different parts of the course. Here, we'll consolidate what we know and bring all of those aspects together as we study the timeline, its tools and functionality in detail. Now I'm in same project, catalyst_5994. Inside the 06_01 subfolder, we have a bin called swingdance. One thing I would just like to quickly point out: the tool palette here that we've been using as a learning aid, occasionally it might change shape.

Migrating from Final Cut Pro 7 to Avid Media Composer 5.5 is a thorough comparison of the interfaces, concepts, tools, and workflow behind each of these two programs, covering the key differences video editors need to know to master Media Composer and make the switch. The course covers the basics of editing in Avid Media Composer, including sequence creation, project organization and navigation, importing and linking media, timeline editing techniques, and how to work with audio and add transitions and effects.

Getting tracks into the timeline

We have only been exposed to the Timeline window and dealt with sequences invarious different parts of the course.Here, we'll consolidate what we know and bring all of those aspects together aswe study the timeline, its tools and functionality in detail.Now I'm in same project, catalyst_5994.Inside the 06_01 subfolder, we have a bin called swingdance.One thing I would just like to quickly point out: the tool palette here thatwe've been using as a learning aid, occasionally it might change shape.

If it does that, than you might find that the buttons themselves get out of order.If that happens, just simply grab on the corner again, pull it back to the samelength that it was originally, and there you have it--you're back to the original tool palette the way that we set it up.Now in this chapter, we'll be covering topics that will make heavier usage ofthose editing buttons that we did map to this custom tool palette.And as a reminder, we placed the editing tools here between the playback tools onthe left-hand side and the trim tools on the right-hand side.

So this is all of the editing tools that we are going to be dealing with in this chapter.But of course, those same tools are also mirrored in other places in theinterface, for example the Smart palette that we'll be looking at.One other adjustment we need to make, earlier in the course we switched thedefault start timecode of new sequences to 10 hours as an example, which isprobably fine for anyone working in the UK.But now I'm going to switch back to the default start timecode of one hour.To do that, we need to go to the Settings tab in our project window, go down toour General settings, and here is the default start timecode.

I want to change that to one hour,the semicolons indicating drop frame, and we're all set.Now we know several ways to create a new sequence from scratch.I could simple drag a click from my bin or my Source viewer directly intothe blank timeline area down here, or I could I go to the Clip menu and choose New Sequence.In this case, I want to right-click in the bin and choose New Sequence from here.I'm going to call this new sequence SwingDance.

We can see the new sequence name up here over the Record viewer, and we cansee that the sequence itself has the default number of tracks: one video trackand two audio tracks.First ensure that your Smart Palette tools are all deactivated like they arehere. Then let's go to the Interview_ 02 clip in my bin, drag it, and drop itinto the Timeline area.Now as we did that, I don't know if you noticed, but I had a yellow arrow.Let's just redo it.I'll undo, go back, drag it over, and you can see that yellow arrow there.

I want you to pay attention to that.What's your system set to?Mine is currently set to insert record by default.If you right-click on the Timeline Settings, here on the Edit tab, SegmentInsert is my current default, and that's what gives me that yellow arrow toallow me to insert clips into my timeline as I'm working.So that was one example of quickly adding some material to the timeline usingdrag-and-drop, which we'll be covering in much more detail in the next video.

Here what I would like to do is now add a sequence.SwingDance_Start, I'm going to drop it into my Source viewer here, and you couldsee down in the timeline area straight away, we have far more tracks in thissource timeline than we do in our current record timeline.In fact, if I go down and I toggle the view, we can see that there's music, soundeffects, and other clips, including the Broll in our sequence here.Now, one really important thing I need to point out is that when a clip orsequence is on the source side and we're looking at it with a bright green toggle on here,we can't edit this content--we can only edit content which is on the record side.

So with that clear now, let's go ahead and add this SwingDance_Start sequenceonto the head of the SwingDance sequence that we have on the record side.To do this, I'm going to move my timeline cursor back to the beginning of the clip--that's where I'd like to add this sequence--and instead of dragging and dropping,I'm going to use one of these arrows here.I'm going to use a splicing arrow.Now notice what happened this time.The sequence was inserted at the head of my current sequence, so now it's infront of clip Interview_02, but also my record-side sequence automaticallyadded the correct number of tracks to accept what was coming from the sourceside sequence here.

So just a little note here: to do the same thing in Final Cut Pro we would holddown Command and hit F10, or hold down Command and then drag to the Canvasviewer, and then we'd get a non-containerized edit.So we could see all the clips just like we could see them here in Media Composer.In Media Composer, this is the default behavior, but as you know, in Final CutPro the default behavior is actually to containerize the extracted subsequencewhen added to a different sequence.

So instead of seeing these individual clips down here, we would see acontainerized clip in Final Cut Pro.A different way to use a section of one sequence in a different or newsequence with Final Cut Pro is to use copy and paste.We can do the same thing with Media Composer.Let's say I wanted to select interview_01 and interview_02.So what am I going to do is I'm actually going to deselect all the tracksapart from V1, A1 and A2.

Now if I use Command+C for Copy, move to end of my timeline, remove my marks, andthen use Command+V, I get a duplicate of interview_01 and interview_02 down hereat the end of my timeline. Let's just don't do that because we don't want those.But that's one example of copying and pasting in Media Composer.A more versatile way to do the same thing--let's reselect our Interview_01click and our Interview_02 clip here-- would be to use this icon here, whichis Copy to Clipboard.

Now the reason that this is more versatile--let me show you,let me unselect my in and out points here--is that now I can go to my sourceside and I can say show the clipboard contents.When we do this, we get the ability to also re-patch our tracks as well.So now if I wanted to go ahead and add this material into my timeline, I coulddo so on different tracks instead.So copying and pasting will put material on the same track, and adding toclipboard gives us the versatility to re-patch our tracks.

So that was some basic timeline behavior.Let's return now to our exploration of the essential timeline toolsand features.

There are currently no FAQs about Migrating from Final Cut Pro 7 to Avid Media Composer 5.5.

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